“Peter the Great” is the unfinished historical novel by Alexei Tolstoy, on which he worked from 1929 until his death. The first two books were published in 1934. In Tolstoy's moving crowded pages we see the emergence of Russia, thrust forward by Peter's inexorable will, from a backward medieval state to her final position as one of the great powers of Europe. Alexei Tolstoy founded the new Soviet historical novel. Much prominence is given in his work to life in Russia at the end of the 17th century, and to Peter the Great, whose ideas and powerful will were directed towards the transformation of Russia.